If you need some inspiration for creating and living a life you want in 2017, this interview with Marie Forleo and Seth Godin should provide exactly what you need. While the messaging has a slant towards setting up your own venture, it is equally relevant to those who are employees, or maybe looking to set up a side business.

There is one major area I disagree with in the interview, where Seth talks about finding your passion and the dream job or business. He says that it does not exist. The fundamental problem here is that like so many, Seth Godin falls into the trap of getting fixated on a job title or business type, a label if you will. Rather than the person, their values and transferable skills. Our careers are fluid not fixed. We get too caught up on the labels of what we should be doing and what is a great job or career that makes sense or is socially acceptable. We forget that it is not about the label, it is about knowing who we are and what matters most to us. This I think is passion.

In the interview, Seth Godin cites people such as Steve Jobs and that if he was born in a different time in history the iPhone and iPod etc. would not have been created. Steve Jobs would not have had the label or job title he did. He misses the point, for I believe that whatever period Steve Jobs was born in, he would no doubt still have been a visionary and an innovator – regardless of the widget he created. His skills, attributes and values would have fed into something else. Seth Godin continues to cite a few other famous people such as Vincent van Gogh, making the same points around labels. Again, I put forward the same argument. All the examples he references have a theme in that they are people who had a decent level of self-awareness and who would have made a wonderful contribution to the world, however it was packaged or labelled.

The message from the interview is to back yourself and that the best time to act and live the life you want is NOW. Which I 100% agree with. There are a wold of possibilities for us all.

For me, it all comes back to our level of self- awareness, combined with the confidence to act. The more we know about ourselves, our values and behaviours, our core skills and personal attributes, the more chance we have to channel these into a myriad of career paths that we will find rewarding – even be passionate about! Rather than looking for the one elusive dream job, we need to reflect on who we are, what we love doing and what the world needs!